You Are Redeemable
by squeakyswings
Summary: Her eyes don't look like they hold hurricanes anymore. — Lysander/Lily, Lysander/Lucy - For Ellie
1. lily

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Harry Potter_.  
><strong>AN:** Happy (latelatelate) birthday, Ellie! You are a beautiful writer and a lovely friend.

This is part one of a three part fic. I couldn't decide between Lily/Lysander and Lucy/Lysander, so you get both (also Lysander/Happiness. That's part three). I hope you like it! (Nervously crosses fingers.)

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><p><span>you are redeemable<span>  
><strong>Part One: Lily Luna<strong>

Lily likes Lysander because he was there the first time she performed accidental magic. James had stolen her stuffed dragon and he refused to give it back. She'd stormed to her room and threw herself on the floor, shouting and kicking and crying. Lysander had followed her and he stood in the doorway, staring at the screaming bluster of rage on the rug and not saying anything. He saw when the stuffed dragon came flying upstairs and fell on Lily's face, and he saw a very shocked James following it, holding his reddened hands in front of him and swearing that the dragon had come alive, just for an instant, to blast hot air at his fingers.

Lily had looked quite pleased with herself, sitting cross-legged on the ground and clutching her dragon with one hand while scrubbing tears from her cheeks with the other. Lysander had been terrified. He had followed the still-baffled James down to the family room and had left by Floo with his mother hours later, and after that he always invited James to his house.

Lily likes Lysander because he hasn't spoken to her in ten years, since she was seven and set a stuffed dragon on her brother.

She realises that this attitude is unusual, possibly even bordering on insane. But there are so many people in her world—friends and family and reporters and professors and stalkers and acquaintances and nobodies—and Lysander is the only one who seems completely indifferent to her existence. He may even be ignorant of it; he doesn't look up when she grabs Hugo from the Ravenclaw table in the morning, never seems to notice when she stalks down the corridors to detentions with Professor Temple trailing behind her, never cares who she's dating or who she's shunning or whether it's true that she's a lesbian (it isn't, by the way). She once accidentally turned his bag into a rabbit in double Transfiguration and he didn't even notice until it hopped onto his lap. And so it's strange that he is one of her favourite people, but it also isn't, because she is Lily Potter, she is a Slytherin, she likes sprouts and sour sweets and hates tea. She is contradictory, so of course she likes Lysander best of all.

At the end of sixth year, when she's forced to select NEWT courses (because apparently not taking any is not acceptable), she sits beside Hugo at the Ravenclaw table and asks him what he's planning on taking, but really she's listening to Lysander and his mate Cole compare schedules on Hugo's other side. She pretends to scribble down Hugo's classes, but really she's writing Lysander's. She doesn't qualify for some of the classes he's enrolled in—Care of Magical Creatures and Charms, among others—but she can take Transfiguration with him. And so she does.

Nothing feels different at the start of seventh year. The Hogwarts Express steams into King's Cross the way it always has, students launch themselves at each other in the corridor, the coffee tastes the same, the dormitories look ordinary and ancient.

The first day of classes, Lily sits at the Slytherin table, turning her bacon over and examining a line of fat down its centre.

"What's up, Potter?" Bee asks, nudging Lily in the side with one sharp elbow.

"Nothing, Zabini." Lily bites into her bacon and makes a face, dropping her fork on the plate and pushing back from the table. "Bacon's still gross."

Bee rolls her eyes. "You're the only one who thinks so. Where're you off to?"

"Transfiguration."

"You're eager." She glances at the watch dangling from a gold chain around her neck. "Classes don't start for another half hour."

"I have to stop back at the dormitory first."

"Right." Bee takes a bite of toast and asks, "Have you seen Ris around?"

Lily walks backwards, calling, "She might be with Hugo," before she gets out the door.

Lily doesn't go back to Slytherin, though. She heads up the main staircase and up two more flights, skipping trick steps and reaching the Transfiguration classroom before anyone else. She doesn't bother to light the lamps, choosing a seat near the front in the dim early morning light through the west-facing windows.

Lysander is the next one to arrive, as she's expected. He doesn't even look at her, sitting two rows down and pulling out blank sheets of parchment and an eagle feather quill. They sit there in silence; Lily hyperaware of the way Lysander's brown hair falls over his forehead, Lysander unaware of the quick repetitive burst of Lily's heart beneath her school shirt.

Hugo arrives next, glancing at the empty chair next to Lysander and the empty chair beside Lily before falling into the one nearest his cousin. "Hey, Lil. Did you do the reading over the summer?"

Lily shakes her head. She doesn't want to speak and break their silence, but then Lysander says, "Good morning," to Cole, and the connection severs.

"No," she says to Hugo. "I didn't." He doesn't look surprised.

Lily is the first one in the classroom every day. A few weeks into the school year she notices that Lysander has begun coming earlier and earlier; at first it's just a minute, but the time between her arrival and his lessens, until one day she opens the door and he's already sitting in his chair, his hands folded on the desk in front of him. He doesn't look up at her, but his lips lift in a smirk. She decides she'll let him win this one—from then on, she's the second one to class.

She first hears the rumour in late November. It is by far the most absurd thing to ever come out of the mouths of Hogwarts students. It isn't about the boy they all swear they saw her snogging last weekend or the amount of alcohol she consumed during the last Slytherin party or even that her brother Albus will be coming to Hogwarts to lecture her so _girls_, loosen your buttons. They are saying that she's an animagus.

An animagus. As in slithery green scaly serpent-y thing. Because of course, it could never be a bunny for Lily Luna Potter. The whole school knows she's a little bit devilish.

Lily laughs the first time Ris approaches her about it.

"So you're not?" she asks. "Pinkie swear?"

Lily links her pinkie with Ris's. "I swear. I'm not. Where the fuck did they get that idea?"

"It's just because you haven't been causing as much trouble this year. They all think you must be hiding something."

"Do you think I am?"

"Well, Hugo and I were just talking about it yesterday. I mean, you have to admit you've gotten a bit...boring...lately. And don't take that the wrong way," Lily's lower lip sticks out in a pout and her eyes fall sharp on Ris's, "it's true. You didn't even come to our party last weekend. What were you, asleep?"

"I was, actually."

"See, that's just weird." Ris takes Lily by the arm and begins leading her down the corridor, towards Potions. "That isn't you. You're always in the middle of things. This year the only time I'm guaranteed to see you is at lunch. Not even breakfast, because you're always getting up so early." Her nails dig into Lily's wrist. "Wait. You don't have a boyfriend, do you? An actual boyfriend? One with exclusive snogging rights?"

"Of course I don't." Lily shakes her head. "Is it so strange to think that I might be tired of being, you know, in the middle?"

"Yes." They reach the classroom and Ris pushes Lily inside ahead of her. "You love it, Lil, don't even lie. There's a party tonight. You'll be there, right?"

She sighs. "Yeah, I guess I'll be there."

"Good. Maybe blokes'll stop researching how to become animagi to attract your attention."

Lily rolls her eyes. "They're such _idiots_."

"Honestly, I'm just lucky that Hugo's related to you. That's the only way for anyone to get any action at this place. Date someone who is morally forbidden to lust after you."

Lily's nails are making half-moon marks on her skin. "I'm not that special."

Ris glances at her friend's hands. "It doesn't matter, Lily. I was just teasing."

"Right," Lily mutters, but she doesn't believe her. Ris doesn't tease. The professor snaps her wand against the board and they stop talking.

Lily wishes that she could take back all the insanity she used to love.

This identity, it doesn't fit her anymore. She feels like someone who shrunk inside a costume, so the arms are too long and the skirt pools on the floor, so the seams scratch at her skin in strange places.

She goes to the party that night, and to many other other ones in the following months, and she feels uncomfortable and out of place, but no one notices. Bee and Ris still twist around her, and she moves, too, she supposes, but it's all blurry. Not from alcohol or from snogging or from touching, but because Lily is distanced. Heavy beats shake the common room floor, but her mind is flipping through spells she needs to know for her Transfiguration exams, she's thinking about Auror examinations and NEWTS. She's not there, in that room, not really.

She only feels present when she's sitting in silence two desks away from Lysander. She can now breathe at the same rate as him, so every exhale-inhale-exhale is a practised and rhythmic duet. Lily hasn't missed a day yet. Lysander has, though. In January, he comes in late to Transfiguration three times. Late to the actual class, not just late by Lily's standards. But he doesn't miss a day in February, and Lily stops worrying about him.

And then in April he says, "Hello," when she sits down in her chair.

She doesn't respond. She doesn't want to, but she also doesn't think that she's capable. Her vocal chords freeze when he speaks; her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth and her fingers lay flat on the desk. She doesn't look at him. He doesn't say anything else.

He isn't there early before their next class, or the one after that, or the one after that, and by early May she's stopped arriving to class before the bell. In fact, she wanders in ten or twenty minutes late, most days, earning her a stern glare from the professor but nothing harsher. No detentions, even though she's practically begging for one.

It is lonely, she realises, to have no place where she actually _feels_. Being there, in the classroom—sure, it was dreary. It was a classroom in a castle, with stone walls and wavy, thick-paned windows, and a blackboard that looked grey with years of chalk dust and a man sitting two seats away who sometimes sighed out into the silence like he hated it, but he was still _there_. And Lily didn't care that it was dreary, then, because she noticed all that, and she noticed more than that—she was aware, and present, and now that she doesn't have that anymore, she misses it.

She knows she can fix it. She tries to speak to him, sometimes, but nothing comes out. And then, on the last day of their NEWTS, he passes Lily in the entrance hall. "Good luck, Potter," he mutters.

And she's too shocked to respond. Her voice may as well be broken, as far as Lysander's concerned. And she hates that.

Nights pass with agonising slowness after they complete their exams; Lily wants to get out of Hogwarts, she aches for a world without dormitories and set mealtimes and these same faces.

Their last night, Hugo crashes the year-end Slytherin party, and the four of them—Lily, Ris, Hugo, and Bee—sit in a circle in the corner, playing a half-hearted game of Truth or Dare.

"It's so strange," Bee keeps muttering.

"It is," Ris keeps agreeing.

"We were first years _yesterday_," Hugo keeps exclaiming, with increased emphasis on the final word the more he drinks.

Lily isn't saying anything, but they don't notice. She's also not drinking. When Ris falls in a pile of half-giggles and half-sobs onto Hugo's lap, Lily pushes herself to her feet and winds her way through the common room, out to the dark corridor and up four flights of stairs. She answers the riddle and climbs into the dim light of Ravenclaw.

She follows the familiar path to Hugo's dormitory and pushes the door open, her illuminated wand falling on three sleeping forms before she sees Lysander's dark hair against his pillow. She hesitates, then mutters, "_Nox_," and crosses the room.

She prods him with her index finger, touching him right where his collarbone runs into his shoulder. He rolls over onto his side. She pokes him again, this time pressing against one of the bumps in his spine. He mumbles into his pillow.

Then Lily climbs carefully onto the space beside him and leans down so her lips hover centimetres from his ear. "Lysander," she whispers. "Lysander, wake up."

His eyes open, glistening in the moonlight falling through the window. He freezes. "Wh-who is it?"

"Lily, you idiot." Lily tugs the curtains around his bed closed and casts a Silencing charm around them before saying, "_Lumos,_" once more and moving to sit cross legged at the foot of Lysander's bed.

"Lily?" He sits up, holding his sheet to his chin with one hand and rubbing his eyes with the other. "Merlin. Fucking Merlin. What are you doing here? Why are you talking to me? Is everything okay?"

"I always liked you." Lily tells him. She pulls her knees to her chest and leans her chin on them. "You have always been my favourite."

"For the record, it is not okay to wake me up at," he squints at his watch, "fucking one in the morning. Especially if you're drunk."

She doesn't flinch. "I'm really sober. I promise." She holds out her pinkie. He stares at her like she's crazy. "It's called a pinkie swear, Lysander."

"I know what it's called. I'm also not about to enter into any sort of contract with you, childish or otherwise."

Lily rolls her eyes. "It's very mature. But fine, if that's the way you want it." She lowers her hand.

"What are you _doing_ here, Lily?"

"I was telling you," Lily points out. "I have always liked you best. Mostly because you've always ignored me, but then this year I started think I might like you because of _you_."

He lets the sheets fall as he pinches the bridge of his nose. Lily thinks she ought to get on with the talking so they can move on to the not talking. "You realise that makes no sense," he says.

"It makes perfect sense. You put up with my insanity this year—even encouraged it, sort of—and that means that you see more than most people do, which means that you are deeper than I ever thought you were, which means that I want to get to know you."

"You had plenty of opportunities over the last seven years. Especially over the last seven months. So why the fuck are you here _now_?"

"I've been fighting against self-destructive tendencies for the last seven months. I've finally won." But that's a lie, she knows. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Merlin." Lysander runs his hand through his hair. "You come here, at one in the morning. You get into bed with me and wake me up and start talking nonsense and now you're asking permission?"

"I'll take that as a yes." Lily bites her lip. "Why?"

He laughs, harsh and quick. "Why what?"

"Why didn't you used to pay attention to me? Why did you come to Transfiguration early every day for me? Why," she breathes, "why did you decide to speak when you did?"

He closes his eyes. "Of all the questions...okay. One, because when I was little I was afraid of what you'd done to James, with your dragon. When I was older, partially because it was habit, and partially because...well...you've gotten enough attention from everyone else. You certainly didn't need me paying any attention to you."

"And?" Lily prompts.

"Because I was curious, I guess. Because you coming to class early didn't fit in with what I thought about you. And I finally talked because I was sick to death of all the stupid silence. Do I get a question now?"

Lily nods.

"Why didn't you answer me?"

"I told you," Lily points at her chest, "self-destructive tendencies."

"You're insane." Lysander shakes his head.

"I probably am." She looks at him. "Now that I'm here, can I stay?"

He just stares at her for a long moment, his eyes darting from hers to her lips to her hands where they're clasped around her knees.

"Just to sleep," he finally says. He lies back and Lily crawls towards him.

He doesn't touch her, but after their breaths fall to their usual practised pattern, Lily moves to rest her red hair on his shoulder. His arm goes around her waist, and then they are touching, and Lysander mutters, "Fuck it," into her neck, and all of her baggage is weightless.

She kisses him awake when dim dawn light edges through the cracks in his bed curtains.

"Hey," he says, reaching up to push some red hair behind her ears.

"Hi," she kisses him one last time, and then sits up, pulling her t-shirt over her head.

"Where're you going?" he asks, looking at her with something like panic in his eyes.

"I need to pack."

"And then?"

"Do me a favour." She slides down from his bed, standing so that the curtains fall against her back. "Don't talk to me today."

"Lily, what...? I will talk to you. I want to talk to you. What are you _doing_?"

She shakes her head. "Don't. Tomorrow, we'll talk tomorrow."

"Then what was the point?" he asks, but he doesn't expect an answer. She's already gone.

Lily walks from Ravenclaw to Slytherin, knowing this is the last time she'll follow this path as a student. It's a strangely liberating feeling.

But she'll miss Lysander.

Tomorrow, she'll be a new person with an Auror career and an empty flat. Tomorrow, she won't miss him.

Lily promises herself—tomorrow will feel different.


	2. lucy

**Disclaimer: **I do not own _Harry Potter_.  
><strong>AN:** Part Two, still very much Ellie's.  
>(I clearly had issues with the title. I think I'll leave it as it is.)<p>

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><p>you are redeemable<br>**Part Two: Lucy**

Lucy doesn't say anything to him the first time she sees him, sitting at the far end of the bar, holding a full glass of beer in one hand all night, not bothering to even pretend to drink it. She doesn't speak to him the second time she sees him there, either, or the third. But by the fifth night, when she's tired of sliding a full glass down the sticky bar at eight and picking it up again at closing, she really has no choice. She is a bartender, after all. Sympathy and all that shit—it's part of their job description.

She waits until the early crowd drifts out and only a few people still linger at the tables spread throughout the yellow-lit room. When she's sure that she has at least ten minutes to spare—the least amount of time required for therapy sessions—she crosses behind the bar area to where he's sitting. He doesn't look up.

"You're a Scamander, right?"

He shoves his beer from one hand to the other. "Yeah."

Both Lysander and Lorcan had been in Lily and Hugo's year at school, meaning that this man had only left Hogwarts seven or eight months before. He is barely of age. Lucy probably should have checked his ID when he first walked in, but he looks older than seventeen or eighteen.

"Which one?" she asks. This may be rude, but at least she remembers his surname. She didn't often interact with the younger classes when she was at Hogwarts, and he must have been a fifth year when she was in seventh.

"Lysander." He looks down at his hands and his beer.

"Lysander," she repeats. Lorcan is friends with Louis and Roxanne, and Lysander used to be close with James and Albus, she thinks, although she hasn't heard his name mentioned at family gatherings in a few years. "Well, Lysander, what brings you here?"

"You're a Weasley," he says abruptly. "Red hair."

She nods. "Lucy."

"Gryffindor?"

"Ravenclaw."

"You weren't."

"Yes, I was." Lucy smoothes some loose hair behind her ear. "Why?"

"Because I was a Ravenclaw, and I don't remember seeing you around the Common Room. And also, you're working in a pub."

"I spent a lot of time in the library or in Gryffindor," Lucy explains. "And it's a job. Do _you_ have one?"

"I do, actually." He doesn't sound defensive, even though Lucy wants him to; it's always easier to find out what's bothering someone if he's emotional about it.

"Oh?" The door chimes and a couple dressed in matching orange robes enter, sitting in a corner booth.

"Looks like you have customers," Lysander says.

Lucy's ten minutes are up, and all she's learned is that this boy is more reticent than her cousin Lily, and that is saying something.

She nods and turns, adding, "It was good talking to you, Lysander," over her shoulder.

He says, "You, too," to her back, but she can't tell if he means it, or if he's just being polite.

He's back two nights later. His stride is short and shameful as he moves to the empty space at his end of the bar, and Lucy wonders if he thinks that it is the act of going to the pub, and not the excessive drinking, that ruins lives. Ravenclaws can sometimes be obtuse that way.

"What would you like?" she asks him. He shrugs.

"Chips?"

"Only if you promise to eat them."

His smile is half-there. "I'll eat them."

"All right, then. Chips it is."

When the pub empties out and Lysander is sitting with an empty chip basket she approaches him. "Do you want anything else?"

He shakes his head. "Thanks."

Lucy sighs. "What're you doing here, Lysander? Who's the bitch broke your heart?"

He chuckles. It's a dry and dark sound, and she's not sure how someone with such a perfect face can make a noise so unbearably sad. "Nobody broke my heart." He glances at his hands and then at her face. "When you left Hogwarts, what'd you do?"

"I went into the Ministry for a week. A lower intern in the Department of Mysteries. It was hell. And then I started here."

"And here is better?"

"For me." Lucy shrugs. "Other people liked the Department; other people like the Ministry. Why, Lysander?"

"It's just draining," he says. "To work all the time, and to leave work and know that my brother's in our flat, trying to rewrite a manuscript on our grandfather for the fifth time, praying that this time someone will publish it. To leave work knowing that when I get home I'll have to listen to Lorcan rehash our family history for three hours before I can plead off to bed. That's what I'm doing here. It's less effort than going home."

Lucy bites back her curiosity about Lorcan's book. "Where are you working?"

He rolls his eyes. "The wandmakers. And it should be fascinating, right? I should love it. And I do, when I'm there. But the whole going to work thing, I don't know, Lucy. It's just so damned repetitive. Don't you ever get tired of it?"

"Not here," Lucy answers.

"Not here," he sighs. "And see, that's weird, because that means it's possible to like something enough to want to do it over and over again, every day, forever."

"Forever," Lucy laughs. "I hope not! I'm saving up to travel. Someday I'll be hopping around Africa and Asia and Europe. Your problem is that you've let yourself become stuck. You need to do something different. Go on a date, play Quidditch, get together with all your old mates, do _something._"

"This isn't something?" he asks, just as the door chimes.

Lucy glances over at the eight blokes who're gathering around the till. "You tell me," Lucy says, "does it feel like something?"

He's gone the next time she looks over at his corner.

She gets off early on Sunday evening, and when she pushes out of the pub she finds him leaning against the front window, tapping an unlit cigarette against his thigh.

"Lucy!" He pushes away from the window and walks beside her, his stride matching hers perfectly.

"Do you smoke?" she asks, glancing at the single cigarette.

"Oh." He looks at it, too, as if seeing it for the first time, and then drops it in a bin on the street corner. "No, some bloke just gave it to me. He and his mates were out smoking. I guess they thought I was bumming for one."

Lucy laughs. "Maybe they wanted you to join them, did you consider that?"

Lysander shrugs. "Maybe they did. I was waiting for you, though."

"Were you?" Lucy asks, as if that weren't obvious. "Why?"

"Because you told me to do something different. Lucy Weasley, will you go on a date with me?"

Lucy blinks. She hadn't been expecting _that_. "Um..."

"Not," he rushes, "not anything serious. Let me take you out to dinner and buy you a drink. I promise I'll eat and drink and act normal for the entire meal. You can babble my ear off like I've been doing to yours and it'll be fun."

Lucy glances at him. He looks too hopeful, "All right, all right. Can I go home and change, first?"

"Oh," he looks at the beer-stained top and jeans she's wearing and nods, "of course."

He follows her up a flight of stairs to a flat above Madame Malkin's and waits in the entryway while she runs through a messy kitchen and shuts the door at the far end.

"Sorry it's such a mess," she calls. "I haven't had company in a while. We usually all just go to Moll's."

"No worries," Lysander shouts back. "My flat is worse."

"I doubt that," she reappears, running her fingers through recently-freed waves of red hair and straightening a black dress over her hips. She slides her feet into silver sandals and grabs a purse from the mess on the table. "All set."

"Brill," Lysander holds the door for her and follows her back down the stairs and out into the dim light of the late evening.

They go for Italian, and after a long meal of discussions occasionally interrupted by companionable silences, Lysander walks Lucy back to her flat and drops a kiss on her cheek. She surprises herself by saying, "We should do this again sometime."

"I'm free on Wednesday," he says.

"Perfect." She goes to bed feeling unexpectedly happy.

They meet for dinner twice a week for the next three weeks, and when Lysander follows Lucy to her bed early on a Sunday morning it feels almost inevitable. They don't hide their eyes shamefully in the morning, and Lysander cooks eggs while Lucy brews the coffee. They sit on the floor in her kitchen—because that's the only space not covered by mess—and grin at each other between burning sips. They're back in bed before noon.

Lucy's never had anything quite this normal. This thing with Lysander, it feels ordinary. She's always been one of the girls who kisses in pubs and goes home for a night and never considers attachment or regularity. Lucy always wants to leave. And it's not that this thing with Lysander is going to last forever, but it is lasting, for now.

A few months after they begin, she comes into the kitchen while Lysander's sorting through the post on her table and she asks, "Are you going to be around next weekend?"

"Yeah," he answers without looking up. "Why, what's going on?"

"My grandmother's having a family party at the Burrow. I thought, if you're not doing anything, you might like to come?" She hesitates. "It'd be nice to have someone there, you know. For once."

He glances up at her, his hand frozen on a letter that she was probably supposed to answer months ago. "Who's going?" he asks. His voice sounds a little tense, but she ignores it.

"Let's see. Molly and James and Dom and Victoire and Teddy, probably, and Albus and Rose, I think, and Fred and Roxy, and Lily and Hugo...oh." She stops. "No, wait, Lily's not going. She's in Egypt."

"She is?" Lysander sticks his hand in his pocket. "What's she doing there?"

"Some sort of special training for Auror stuff. I don't know. Anyway, she won't be going, so it'll just be all the others and our parents. And probably a few boyfriends thrown in there. I don't think James or Albus are dating anyone."

"That sounds fun," Lysander says after a moment's pause. "Yeah, I'll come."

"You will?" Lucy grins at him. "Thank you, thank you, that's brilliant!"

"Of course," he grins back.

He seems nervous the day of the party, though. His palm is sweaty when she grabs onto it so she can Apparate them both to the Burrow, and he's chewing on his lower lip when they land on the lawn in front of the ramshackle house.

"Are you all right?" Lucy leans close to him.

"Yeah. Yeah." He squeezes her hand and nods towards the tents set up in the side yard. "Let's go say hello."

Everyone's there, and James and Albus converge on Lysander the minute they see him. "Lysander Scamander, you bastard, what've you been up to?" James hits him on the shoulder and Lucy tries not to notice that Lysander looks almost afraid before he steadies his face into a smile.

Albus glances from Lysander to Lucy and back again. "You and Lucy? Congrats, mate." Albus drapes an arm around Lucy's shoulders. "She's always been my favourite cousin."

Lysander rolls his eyes as Lucy elbows Albus in the side. "You lie," she laughs, but her hand seeks Lysander's and she twists her fingers with his, so tightly it's almost painful.

James and Albus draw Lysander into a discussion on an apparently violent Quidditch match they'd once played against a group of Slytherins at Hogwarts, and Lucy scans the party, looking for Molly.

Her eyes settle on another red head, and she interrupts the boys' conversation abruptly, "What's Lily doing here?"

Lysander's hand drops hers instantly. Lucy looks up at him while James says, "Oh, she finished her training yesterday. Didn't Gran tell you? This is her welcome home shindig."

"No." Lucy shakes her head. "Come on, Lysander, let's go say hi to Lil."

"Actually," Lysander tugs at the collar to his shirt, "I just remembered that I promised Lorcan to give his manuscript one last read through today. He's sending it out tomorrow. I'm sorry, Luce," he drops a kiss on her temple and Disapparates with a crack.

Lucy looks from James to Albus. "That was strange."

"Yes," James agrees.

"I should go find out what's going on."

"Probably," Albus says.

"Tell Lil I said hi and bye and stuff."

"Of course," James says, but Lucy's already gone.

She finds Lysander in his flat, sitting on his bed with his head in his hands. He doesn't look up when she comes in.

"Are we permanent?" he asks her.

"What does that even mean?" Lucy asks, leaning against the doorframe and staring at the paleness of his fingers where they grip his dark hair.

"Are we trying to make this last—you know, like someday I'll propose and we'll get a flat together and it'll be messy and we might have kids or we might not but we'll definitely only sleep with each other for the rest of our lives?"

Lucy shakes her head. "I never thought of us as that sort of permanent. Don't get me wrong, Lysander, I love you. I do. But I don't think that love could last through everything I need to do in my life. I don't think you want to follow me around the world, or wait for me to stop always wanting to be somewhere else."

Lysander raises his head. "But we have fun," he points out. "We haven't fought once, and we practically live together."

"We get along well," Lucy agrees. "But...Merlin, Lysander, don't you want something more than what we have? I mean, this is good for right now, neither of us wants to settle down—I thought—and so it works. But for forever? Don't you want somebody who makes you emotional, who makes you angry and happy to such polarizing degrees that every moment feels world-changing?"

"That's too much," Lysander says. "Way too much."

"What do you mean?" Lucy crosses and sits beside him, leaning her head against his shoulder and taking one of his hands in hers. "Have you ever felt that?"

"I think, once." He seems older than her, suddenly.

"And it ended?"

He sighs. "It never really existed."

"How do you mean?"

"She didn't...I don't know, Lucy. I still don't understand it." He laughs, and Lucy's brought sharply back to the first conversation they had in the pub. "She somehow made it seem like it meant nothing. And I was left wondering what the fuck I'd spent my seventh year doing."

"Who?" Lucy knows, though.

"Lily, of course."

And the way he says it, the way he doesn't make it sound like a shameful thing, like he hasn't been cousin-hopping, makes Lucy grateful. Maybe she is his rebound, but at least he thinks enough of her to love her for herself, and not for her red hair and her last name.

"Lily's hard," she tells him.

"I know."

"What are you going to do?" she asks. She takes her hand back from him and inches away from him on the bed. She feels a sharp sense of dislocation in her chest and she knows immediately that she must stop this now, before he pulls her back to him and pins her down on this mattress and turns her into a restless wanderer of this city's streets.

He looks at her. "We're _that_ impermanent, Lucy? We're just over, like that?"

Lucy shrugs. "I need to get out of here. And you're still in love with my cousin. Don't deny it, Lysander," she says, "you are. Those are two facts that we cannot fight. Maybe someday, I don't know. But right now, yeah, I think we're over. Like that."

He shakes his head. "So I say goodbye to you and you go out in search of happiness somewhere and what, I'm here just the way I was before we started except that I can't go to your pub and I won't find you and what does that mean, Lucy?" He sounds hopeless. "What was the point?"

"We happened." Lucy takes his hands again. "We happened, Lysander, and that matters. That was the point. The _happening_ was the point. You can't just go around looking at every little thing that happens in your life like it means something more."

"But now? What do I do now?"

Lucy looks at him for a long moment before standing and kissing his dark hair. "You just need to be, Lysander. Just live. Stop analysing everything for a little while."

He stands, too, and pulls her into a hug. "I don't know, Luce."

"Just try, Lysander," she presses her cheek against his collarbone and reminds herself that he is young and that he has time.

"Come back to me, someday?"

Someday is a nice word, she thinks. She grins at him. "Maybe." And then she Disapparates, and the air crackles around him for a moment, and she is gone.

**A/N:** I promise I'm mostly done with the angst, now. I appreciate reviews!


	3. lysander

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Harry Potter_.  
><strong>AN:** Final part, still all Ellie's. (I don't know what happened here. My brain ran off with me.)

you are redeemable

**Part Three: Lysander**

Lysander makes three very abrupt decisions shortly after Lucy leaves for Africa. First, and most importantly, he quits his job. Wandmaking is all well and good, he is sure, if you're into sitting in a back room all day, waving enchantments over wood until your fingers are more splinters than skin. It quite astonishingly turns out that that is not at all a thing which he is into. Second, he leaves the flat he shares with Lorcan and moves out of London. The city is expensive, and a publishing house has finally made an offer on Lorcan's book, meaning that his brother finally has money and that he has become even more insufferable, what with red-marked edits coming through the window at all hours. Lysander lets a cottage in a town about fifty miles from London, one with an overgrown garden he can't be arsed to tend and a falling-down stone wall and a shed for his owl Anthea in the back. Third, and perhaps least important, he obtains a job in the coffee shop in town. It's not much, not at all, but he figures he'll be okay for however long it takes to sort himself out. And after Lily and then Lucy, he figures he needs a lot of sorting out.

Lorcan sends him messages once every few weeks, but if it weren't for his brother Lysander would be completely isolated from his old friends. The village is the sleepy sort of place where everyone knows everyone else, and naturally Lysander attracts a lot of attention, all the more because of Anthea. He enlists the neighbour's twin daughters in cleaning the hay off the ground of her shed once every few days, and they carry stories of his bird to their parents. The girls are ten, named Willow and Sage, and have horribly frizzy black hair and blue eyes that see far too much. They're still in their fairytale stage, and they come knocking at Lysander's door about five weeks after he moves in, Willow clutching a crumpled sheet of paper and Sage holding a pencil in shaking fingers.

"Mr. Lysander," Willow nods and Sage pushes past him, leading the way to the worn sofa in front of his fireplace. It's late February, and there's a low orange glow in the grate. He hopes no one tries to Floo call him while the girls are there. Sage stands in front of the fire while Willow perches on the arm of the sofa. Lysander leans against the doorway, sticks his hands in his pockets, and raises his eyebrows.

"Would you like some hot chocolate? Or some juice?"

"No, thank you, Mr. Lysander," Sage says. "We are here to ask you some questions."

"Actually," Willow continues, "we are here to inform you that you are doing a rubbish job at hiding your identity."

Lysander blinks. "And what identity am I supposedly hiding?"

Sage glances at the wavy glass of the closed window, then says in a quiet voice, "You are like Gandalf."

"Gandalf," Lysander repeats. He supposes this is one of those Muggle myths he was supposed to learn in Muggle Studies. Probably some sort of god, the way the girls are looking at him.

Sage rolls her eyes and Willow shakes her head. "Good God, what do they teach you wherever you went to school? You know, Gandalf? _Lord of the Rings_."

Lysander blinks.

Sage presses a fist against her lips to keep a giggle contained and finally says, "Oh, what about Merlin. You've heard of him, right?"

Lysander takes a single surprised step backwards, into the kitchen. "Merlin," he says after a moment. "Like King Arthur's Merlin?"

"Yes, him," Willow sighs. "Don't try to deny it."

"What you're trying to say is that you think I'm magical?"

"A wizard, warlock, magician—one of those. Or all of them," Sage says.

Lysander tries to smile. "You're kidding. Aren't you too old to believe in that stuff?"

Sage and Willow glance at each other, and then turn disappointed eyes on Lysander. "We'd hoped you'd know better than to lie to us."

"But we figured that even though you're special, you are just a grown-up, so we brought proof." Willow holds out the sheet of paper in front of her and begins to read, "Proof that our neighbour, Mr. Lysander, is a wizard, magician, warlock, and/or magic individual: he owns an owl; he uses his fireplace; he never washes dishes but somehow his dishes get clean; he has a wand—"

"Hang on," Lysander interrupts. "A wand? What are you talking about?"

"It always falls out of your pocket when you're hanging around." Sage moves from the fireplace and sticks her hand beneath the cushions on Lysander's sofa, by her sister's feet. Her hand emerges gripping Lysander's wand. A few sparks fly from the end.

"Shit." He crosses the room and sticks the wand in his pocket, then glances from Sage to Willow.

"Is your family—?" No, they can't be. He would have noticed, and besides, the girls would have known to call him a wizard. "Of course they're not."

"But you are." Willow smirks.

Lysander's wand feels warm. So is Sage, he wants to add, but if she's not, if the sparks from the wand end were just a fluke (they shouldn't have been) then he'll have a lot of explaining to do when she doesn't get her letter. He glances from Sage to Willow and back again.

"Your parents won't believe you."

"Do you really think we're stupid enough to tell them?"

Lysander is half-expecting a full legion of wizards from the Ministry to come swarming through his fireplace, prepared to _Obliviate_ the girls and send him back to London, fully reprimanded for bringing magic to this tiny quiet town. But the flames remain low and orange, and the twins stand still, staring at him.

"So can you teach us?" Sage asks.

"Teach you...?" Lysander shakes his head. "No. It's something you're born with."

"That's not fair." Willow stamps her foot. Lysander wonders what would have happened if she had been the one to retrieve his wand. He's afraid that it would have remained cold.

"It's not, you're right," Lysander says. "But it's the way it works."

"Can you tell us about it?" Sage asks, sinking onto the couch and drawing her knees to her chin. "What it's like and everything? What you can do? And are there other magical people, too?"

Lysander twists his fingers through his dark hair. It's gotten long since he left London, down over his ears. "I'm sorry, girls, I can't. There are other wizards and witches, and there are laws about what we're allowed to tell non-magical people. Technically, I'm not permitted to tell you anything."

"But how would they find out?" Willow asks, folding her list into a small square, her eyes still on his face.

"They have their ways. Look, maybe someday I'll be able to tell you, but right now that topic is very much off limits. If you guys want to stop taking care of Anthea, I understand."

"Stop taking care of her? Of course not!" Willow says, slipping from the arm. "It's fine."

Sage glares for a fraction of a second. "It's fine, as long as you're honest with us."

"Always." Lysander draws an "x" over the left side of his chest. Sage grins.

"Perfect. We'll go out and see Anthea, now."

"And I'd love some hot chocolate, after," Willow adds.

"As you wish, my ladies." Lysander opens the back door for them and they skip out into the yard, their hands clasped as they run across the ground towards the shed. He shakes his head, sets the kettle on the stove, and mutters, "Fuck."

His plan in moving out here had been very simple. It had consisted of four parts. One: Get away from London. Two: Get away from Lorcan. Three: Get away from the possibility of running into Lily and memories of Lucy. Four: Get away from all things magical and find some sort of sanity.

He's accomplished parts one through three, and up until this afternoon he believed he'd accomplished part four, as well. He only used magic for doing the washing up and calling people. He was well on his way to sanity. And now it seems he's somehow become two little girls' deepest secret, and both of them might get letters in four months and turn into monstrous little witches.

He has no idea how this has happened, but he does know that he's going to ignore it. The girls can badger him with questions, he won't budge until he finds out whether the way his wand reacted when Sage touched it was a fluke or not. He's always been particularly good at ignoring things. He figures this is no different.

The twins don't mention magic to him, although they've started saluting when they see him on the street or in the coffee shop. On a Saturday at the beginning of May, Willow comes into the shop alone, hops up onto the stool at the end of the counter, and leans her head on her hands. She watches Lysander as he froths milk for a cappuccino and stays silent until Mrs. Tillney drops some coins in the tip jar and makes her way to the far end of the shop.

"Mr. Lysander," she says, once she's sure Mrs. Tillney is far enough away, "may I ask you a question?"

"Anything," Lysander answers. "But I can't promise I'll answer it."

"You won't lie, though?" Willow demands.

"I won't lie." He probably shouldn't be so free with promising the truth. Willow doesn't need to know everything yet.

"Weird things have been happening." Willow lowers her voice. "Only to Sage, though. Like last week, she didn't do her homework, and then the next morning she woke up and did it in fifteen minutes, and I watched her, her hand moved so fast I couldn't even see it. And then this morning she burnt her tongue on hot chocolate and it was really red and she said it hurt a lot but then ten minutes later it was better." Lysander nods, wiping his hands on the towel hanging from his apron. "Is she...I mean, are these signs? She tells me I'm being silly but...are they?"

Lysander looks at Willow for a long moment. The poor girl. He can't imagine how it would have felt to have had Lorcan go off to Hogwarts while he wallowed at home with his parents. "They may be," he says. "It's hard to know, maybe Sage is just really good at doing homework and is a quick healer."

"She's not," Willow says. "She's neither of those things." Willow bites her lip. "Nothing like that has happened to me. Does that mean I'm not...I mean, we're identical. Aren't we supposed to be exactly the same?"

"It might not mean anything, Willow. Don't worry yet." Lysander slides a biscuit down the counter and smiles. "Eat some sugar. You look a little ill."

Willow rolls her eyes. "It won't always be this easy to get rid of me," she warns, hopping down from the stool with the biscuit in her hand.

"I know." She pushes out of the door and Lysander stares at the till unseeingly for a few minutes. She's going to be heartbroken, and he won't know what the hell to do. Running back to London has never seemed like such a good idea.

He locks the café after his shift ends that night and walks down the empty street, past dark windows and down two more roads until he reaches his cottage. The lights are off in both his neighbours' homes, and he passes his own cottage to get to Anthea's shed. The bird hoots when he pushes the door open, and he casts a _Lumos_ charm, sits on the cool paving stones, and holds out his arm. Anthea digs her talons into his skin as he smoothes the feathers on her head.

Lysander doesn't want to talk to his bird. He wants to talk to Lucy, or to sit in silence with Lily. He wants to feel connected, the way he did when he was with them—although with Lily it was always more of a hot burn of feeling, with Lucy it had been calm. He had liked being with her because she had made him feel peaceful.

He wonders if Lucy would respond if he wrote to her. He wonders if Lily would respond if he wrote to _her_. He looks into Anthea's yellow eyes and asks, "Want to deliver some letters for me? We'll try Lucy first, yeah?" Because that parting had been a bit more amicable.

He scribbles out a note to Lucy, he tells her about Willow and Sage and asks her what he should say when the inevitable happens, and then attaches the letter to Anthea's leg and sends her off against the backdrop of the moonlit sky. He doesn't expect to see her for a while. After all, Lucy is somewhere in Africa or South America or Asia, living her dreams and probably not even thinking about the guy she once cared for.

Lucy had been his friend, she probably still is, but Lysander knows that if she ever comes back to the UK, if she ever settles down, she won't ever look at him the way she did the first time they kissed. He knows that is over, because she dreams of something earth-shattering and real, and she thinks the best definition for what they had is "nice." And he knows she's right. He thinks about how he would define their relationship while cleaning up at work, or while ringing up a customer, or while lying back in his bed at nine at night because he has nothing better to do with his time, and yes, he knows, she was right, it was "nice." Which is why he wants Lucy to happen again. Nice is not the word he would use to describe that utterly messed up _thing_ with Lily. And he likes nice. He might not have felt as much with Lucy, but at least the feelings he had were all good ones. Lily had just made him crazy.

He tries not to think about them, though. He awaits Lucy's reply and tries to think about what he'll say when a different letter arrives at the house next door. He feels almost responsible; what if he hadn't moved here, how would their parents have handled it, how would Willow and Sage have handled it? But now he's here, and now he knows that there will be excited screaming in his living room and crying in his kitchen and he's never been good with children.

The owl arrives one morning in early July. He sees it from his kitchen window and nearly slices his hand off. He waits for Willow or Sage or both of them to come crashing through the front door, but it remains closed; they don't come before he leaves for work.

When he gets back home, there's a light coming from the shed. He walks through his still overgrown garden and pushes the door open. Willow's sitting on the ground, a torch on the floor in front of her, with Anthea on her wrist and eyes glassy with unshed tears.

Lysander sits on the ground across from her and draws his knees to his chin.

Willow doesn't say anything, but she holds out an unopened envelope. Lysander stares at it.

"Anthea brought it," Willow manages, her voice shaky even on those three simple words. Lysander remembers, _Lucy_, and takes it from her. He tucks it into his pocket and stares at his hands. He's spent enough time thinking about this moment that he knows he should have a speech planned, something uplifting, something heart-warming, some way of promising Willow that she'll be okay.

He's got nothing.

"Is it really wonderful? Magic, Hogwarts, all of it?" Willow asks, her voice breaking.

"It's not the most wonderful thing in the world," Lysander says. Willow pins him with a watery glare. "It isn't, Willow, I promise. I swear. It can sometimes be really horrible. Sometimes I hate it." Right now, he hates it. He would gladly give her his magic. He doesn't need it, she might.

"What's better than it, then?"

He looks at her, really looks at her. "Willow, you are ten years old. You have an entire life that your sister will not have. And yes, she will go off to a school that you will never see." Tears start leaking from Willow's eyes, and Lysander bites his lip, then pushes on. "She will have a lot of experiences and you will probably be jealous and it is not fair, you're right to think that, because it isn't. But it's also not fair that you will stay here, or go to school elsewhere, that you will make friends and have experiences that your sister can never have. You are splitting up, and that sucks, it does, but it doesn't mean that her end of the deal is any better or worse than yours."

"How?" Willow asks. "How could mine possibly be the same as hers? She gets magic, and I get everything I've always had, just without her. That's not...it's not the same!"

"Things change, Will. They'd have changed anyway. It's not always bad." Lysander sighs. "Look, here are things you will still do." Willow wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand. "You will still make friends; you will get into trouble; you will do well in school—you _will_; you will meet somebody you love; you will have adventures. You're smart, kid. I think you'll do a lot, without magic. Magic sucks sometimes because it seems like it's all I am. You've got a lot more than that."

Willow shakes her head. "It still isn't fair."

"No, it's not." Lysander stands. "But you'll be okay. And I'll be here with biscuits and chocolate when you want to complain."

Willow holds out her arm so Anthea can fly off and stands. She looks up at Lysander and says, "Thank you."

"Anytime, kid. How're your parents holding up?"

"They're shocked. And Sage is excited. It's...weird...at home."

Lysander nods. "It'll get better." The only thing to say, really. He hands her the torch and leads her from the shed. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay? Come by the shop after four and I'll give you one of our special raspberry pastries."

She smiles at him. It's small, but it's there. "Thank you."

He nods and waits until she's back inside her own house before he returns to his. He sits at the kitchen table, pulls out Lucy's letter, and begins to read.

It's full of stories about travel, chatty stuff that makes him breathe a little easier. In the final paragraph, she wrote: _That sucks about your neighbours. I'm sure when the time comes you'll know what to say. You've always been good at that. I miss you!_ _xx Lucy_

"Unhelpful, Lu," but then she's got a whole life that doesn't involve him.

He presses his forehead against the table and wonders whether ten year-old girls can ruin their whole lives with jealousy. He thinks it might be possible.

He sits up and folds the letter into thirds, stopping his creasing at the final bit when he notices that Lucy's written something on the back. He smoothes out the paper and reads: _I've just read over what I wrote and it sounds horrible and flippant. I'm sorry, Lysander. What I meant is that you usually say the right thing. You get people to like you, and so you get people to believe you. I mean, you got Lily to trust you—and yes, you'll say that worked out poorly, but still, she _trusted_ you, which is actually quite staggering. She's written me, by the way, apologised for showing up unannounced at that party. I told her she was being ridiculous, that you and I never would have lasted. I guess I have two points, or maybe three. One: the girls will be okay. You'll handle it well and they'll be much better off with you there than they would have been if you hadn't moved in. Two: Lily might be growing up. I don't know how you're feeling, but maybe you could write to her? Three: I love you, Lysander, and I do miss you. I wish you were here with me, but not like _that_, you prat. You _know_._

He smiles and refolds the letter, slipping it into his pocket and crossing to the stove. He sets the tea kettle on just as someone raps at his front door. He glances at his watch; occasionally some of his co-workers come to drag him out with them, but he hasn't heard any rumblings of a party in the works lately.

Lysander opens the door to find Willow and Sage's parents standing on his front step, their faces pale and hands clasped at their sides. "Lysander," their father says.

He really should have been expecting this. "Brad, Janice, come in." He steps away from the door and follows them through to his living room, where they sit on the edge of his sofa, looking uncomfortable and out-of-place. "I've just put the kettle on, would either of you like tea?"

"No," Brad bites.

"Thank you, though." Janice lays a hand on her husband's thigh and smiles thinly at Lysander.

He is only nineteen, only just out of school; he really should not be here, with these adults staring at him like protective bears, like he's a devil. "I'm afraid I'm terribly out of my depth here," Lysander admits. "But I imagine you have questions."

"Damned straight we have questions." Brad's voice is low and gruff.

"All right, then." Lysander sits on the very edge of the arm chair and looks from Brad to Janice. "Ask away."

"You're one, too."

"I am a wizard." Their eyes narrow; they're awaiting proof. He tugs his wand from his pocket and waves it so that the deck of playing cards on the coffee table sends itself upward into a red and black and white castle. "Sage is a young witch, so her magical ability is not quite realised yet. It will be."

"And you're here because of her?" Brad asks, his voice still hard.

"No. I wouldn't have moved to this town if I had known that anyone here was magical. I promise you."

"Why not?" And now Janice is suspicious.

"My family is well-known in the wizarding world—not for bad reasons—and I wanted to get away from the spotlight for a while." It's a bit of a stretch, but it's the most honest reason he can give. He can't really tell them that he had gotten tired of magic, tired of expectations, tired of being _special_, because they're sending one of their daughters off into this world. It needs to be a good place, for her.

"You're famous?" Brad says, his tone disbelieving.

"My parents and my brother are." He supposes Lorcan counts now, what with the pre-release excitement surrounding his book. "People only know me through association. But that's not important. Sage will love Hogwarts—everyone does." He thinks of Lily, knows that's a lie. "Or most people do, and she'll fit right in."

"But to send her away, for so long, and she's so young..." Janice trails off, covering her face with her hands.

"There are breaks in the school year, she'll be able to come home sometimes."

"Is it safe?"

Not at all. "Yes. It's much safer than her staying here; she doesn't have control over her magic yet, and she'll learn that at Hogwarts." Lysander rubs a hand over his eyes. "If you'd like, I can write to the school, ask one of the professors to come out here and speak with you. I'm sure they'd do a much better job explaining everything than I can."

Brad and Janice glance at each other. "That would be...helpful."

"All right, I'll do that tonight. Do you have any other questions for me?"

"Why not Willow?" Janice asks. "It seems to be genetic."

Lysander shakes his head. "I have no idea. Willow will be okay, though. She seems like a strong kid."

"Of course she'll be fine." Brad stands. "Thank you for sending that letter."

"Sure," Lysander follows them to the door, holds it open for them and watches as they walk back to their house, a foot of space between them now. He's never seen magic from this angle before—it looks a little sadder, a little less fantastic.

He sends off a letter to the headmistress that night, and falls asleep in his jeans, too tired to bother changing.

Anthea returns three days later, her arrival preceding the appearance of a tall man on the street corner by only a few hours. Lysander passes the man on the sidewalk and turns his head sharply when he recognises him.

"Teddy Lupin?"

Teddy turns, his eyes widening in surprise. "Lysander Scamander. What are you doing here?"

"I live here. I've got a job in town." Lysander nods towards his cottage and Teddy narrows his eyes.

"I've been wondering where you've got to. Haven't seen you around London lately."

"Yeah, taking time, whatever." Lysander shrugs. "But what are you doing here?"

"The headmistress sent me. Said the family of a Muggleborn in the area had some questions." He raises his eyebrows at Lysander. "I'm assuming you sent the letter? She didn't mention that bit."

Lysander nods. "She probably didn't think it was important. Are you working at Hogwarts now?"

"They needed a new potions master; I needed a new job. I think it'll work out all right."

"That's brilliant. Congratulations." Lysander nods to his neighbour's house. "It's a bit of a nasty business. They're twins, but only one of the girls is a witch. The parents are understandably confused, Sage is overly excited, and Willow is jealous and trying not to be. I've tried to explain it all to them, but I don't think I helped much."

Teddy glances at the house. "Merlin, that's a mess."

"Yeah, magic's being a bitch."

Teddy snorts. "You sound like Lily used to."

"Maybe it's infectious."

"Transferrable," Teddy corrects, then grins. "Where are you off to? Want to meet me after my meeting?"

"I've got to get to work. I'll be at the coffee shop on the corner of Main Street until nine tonight. You could stop by there, if you want, before you head back to Hogwarts."

"I will. I'll let you know how this goes." Teddy glances at the house. "Welling could have picked an easier family for my first visit."

"You'll do fine. They're nice enough." Lysander smiles. "If all else fails, just send Willow from the room and lie through your teeth about it being dangerous."

"Sure." Teddy shakes his head. "See you." 

"Good luck." Lysander turns and continues down the street, determinedly not glancing back at Teddy as the older man approaches his neighbour's home.

Teddy arrives in the café two hours later, his hair a mess from the number of times he's run his fingers through it. Lysander hands him a strong filter coffee as soon as he sits down and leans his forearms on the counter.

"How'd it go?"

"I think they know as much about Hogwarts as I do, now, and have probably made inferences about magic that I'd never have made in a thousand years." He sighs. "They're insane, but they'll let her go."

"That's good." Lysander rings up a customer and when he turns back to Teddy the other man has his chin on the counter.

"This job is going to be difficult," Teddy confesses. "I thought it'd be a bit like going back to school, but it's not, at all. I have to act like I _know_ things."

Lysander laughs. "You do know things. I'm sure you'll be fine at it, Lupin."

"Yeah, I don't know. Maybe you've got the right idea. Get away from it all." Teddy looks around the small shop, at the two occupied tables and the seven empty ones. "Although that didn't work out so well, I guess, considering what's going on next door to you."

"Not perfectly," Lysander admits. "Besides, everyone treats me like I've run away. You wouldn't like that."

"And you do?"

"Not really." Lysander shrugs.

"What _are_ you doing here?" Lupin asks. "Because _I_ thought you were running away."

"Not really," Lysander repeats. "I just came here because I needed a change. I didn't have much to run away from."

Teddy looks at him for a long moment. "James and Albus miss you. You should come in to London sometime, see the Potters. Everyone would love to see you."

Lysander nods. "I will. I've got a life here, though, you know."

"Mmm, telling fairytales to kids, making coffee, taking everyone's extra shifts. Sounds like a good life."

"I _like_ it," Lysander hisses. "And where do you get off, anyway?"

Teddy rubs his hands over his face. "Merlin, I'm sorry. I'm knackered and you look like someone's gutted your best mate. I just mean...maybe we all think dramatic change is good and brave and shit, but maybe it's the small changes that would make the biggest difference."

Lysander shuts his eyes. "So you're saying I should have stayed and gotten on with the life I had, just tried to make it better?"

"I guess." Teddy shoves some money across the countertop for the coffee. "I don't know, Lysander, maybe you are going the right way about it. I've got to get going. Thanks for the coffee."

He's out the door before Lysander can hand him the coins back. It doesn't really matter, Teddy's knowledge of Muggle money is lacking—he's given Lysander four two pence pieces.

Lysander pushes what Lupin said to the back of his mind for the rest of the summer; he occupies himself with comforting Sage and Willow's parents—they require a lot of comforting—and taking on shifts at the café, and occasionally going out with Eliot, Lydia, and Jordan. But then autumn comes. Eliot and Jordan leave for university and are replaced by women well past their seventieth birthdays; Lucy stops writing as frequently because she's on a trip down the Amazon; Lydia starts dating a bloke two towns over; Sage leaves for Hogwarts and Willow has school during the day and football in the evening, her parents busy working and driving her everywhere; and Lysander finds himself more alone than he's felt since the days just after Lucy left London.

He supposes he should be surprised when he enters the coffee shop for a shift one afternoon late in September and finds a redhead sitting on a stool at the end of the counter. He stops in the entrance to the shop and stares at her. She turns to look at him, her face calm. She's not smiling, but she's not frowning, either. Her eyes don't look like they hold hurricanes anymore.

Lysander continues by her and around the counter, slipping his apron over his head and tying it deftly behind his waist. He smiles at Marge, one of the newly hired workers, and checks the levels on the filter coffee pots.

Lily sighs. "Hi, Lysander."

He doesn't respond, lifting the lid on the container of coffee grounds and lifting out a spoonful.

"Lucy told me you'd moved here. I saw Teddy last weekend at Roxy's birthday party, and he said you were working in a coffee shop. I had nothing going on today, so I thought I'd come by and see how you were doing."

"Lysander, dear, I think that lovely redhead is talking to you," Marge says, in a mock-secretive tone. "You might want to look at her."

The noise of the door swinging open gives Lysander an excuse to glance over towards Lily. She glances behind her, too, and offers the newest entrant into this horrible charade of emotions a bare smile.

Lysander blinks. It's Willow. She crosses the wood floor and hops up on the stool nearest the till, at the exact opposite end of the counter from Lily.

"Shouldn't you be in school?" he asks her. Marge tuts and Lily's eyes lock on the side of his face.

"I have a problem," Willow says.

"You do," Lysander answers. "Because you should be in school."

Willow waves a hand like it doesn't matter. "I am horribly bored."

Lysander glances at Lily, and then over at Marge, who is staring very intently at the stack of clean dishes on the sideboard, and then at the clock, which has just clicked to one. "Marge, don't you have to go look after your grandson? I thought that's why I was covering for you this afternoon."

"Oh, right, of course." Marge wipes her hands and carefully unties her apron. Lysander turns back to Willow.

"You are bored," he repeats. "We were all bored in school, Will."

"Were _you_?" Willow asks, as Marge waves a hand at Lysander and chimes out the door. Willow lowers her voice, glancing down the counter at Lily, who is staring into her empty coffee cup. "Because Sage sends me letters and they're full of the most fascinating things and you told me not to be jealous but _Lysander_," she whines, "it just is not fair."

"I was bored," Lysander tells her. "And maybe Sage isn't right now, because it is all very new to her, but eventually she will be. None of this will be forever, and you'll be better off if you get to school."

"Not true." Willow places her small hands in fists on the counter. "You promised you'd never lie but you just did. This is forever. She has," Willow glances down the counter at Lily again, "she has _it_ forever, and I have nothing."

Lysander wishes that Lily would step in. He wishes it so badly he almost asks her, because this kind of tragedy is right up her alley.

But he can't talk to her yet, because the last words he said to her were a desperate question and he's still waiting on the answer. Lily stays silent at the other end of the counter and Willow stares at Lysander, her eyes fighting tears.

"You're right. I'm sorry, I lied. Sage will always have magic and you will always not have magic," Willow glances sharply at Lily, and Lysander continues, "it's all right, she knows. But Willow, I wish I could make you see that whether or not you have magic doesn't matter. You have a world and Sage has a world and it's how you choose to live in that world that matters. If you want to spend time thinking about Sage, thinking about how unfair it is—and it is unfair, I will grant you that—then you can. Or you can spend your time finding something that makes you happy. Work at football, or read your books, or draw some pictures. Grow a garden, get a cat, I don't care, Willow, as long as you find a way to be happy. And you can, you can do it easily, without magic. I promise you that."

Willow stares at him, chewing on her lower lip. She turns to Lily. "You know about it?" she asks.

Lily turns her head toward Willow, smiles, nods.

"You're a witch?"

Another nod.

"Do you believe him?" Willow gestures towards Lysander.

Lily nods again and says, "I hated magic for a long time. I still don't always love it. Believe me, believe Lysander, there is so much more in the world. Magic is the most insignificant part of it."

"How, though?" Willow begs. "How do I stop being jealous of Sage?"

"It won't happen right away," Lily says. "But it will happen, if you just do other things." She glances at Lysander, and he can't help but give her a small smile. "Like right now, maybe you should go to school. I can walk you there, if you'd like."

Willow glances from Lily to Lysander and then nods. "Yeah, all right. If you'll answer some questions." She hops from the stool and walks past Lily. "I'm Willow, by the way."

"Lily." She follows the girl from the shop without looking back at Lysander, and he finally lets himself smile. She still hasn't answered his question, but maybe she will.

She comes back in twenty minutes and leans against the counter by the till. "You got yourself into a mess when you moved in next to her. Teddy told me some of that, but you seem like you're doing pretty well with it all."

Lysander shrugs. "Thanks," he says. He can't really justify giving her the silent treatment when she's gotten Willow back to school. "She's a good kid. So is Sage, but Willow definitely got the rough end of the deal."

"You think?" Lily looks at him. "I get the impression you're not too keen on magic yourself, at the moment."

"Well, if it had been me and Lorcan, I'd have wanted it."

"Of course," Lily says softly. She glances at her watch. "I've got to get going, actually, I'm supposed to be working on a case. It was good to see you, Lysander." She stares at him with those eyes and then breaks the moment. "Do you mind if I come visit again?"

He doesn't think about what he's saying. "Sure."

She smiles and glances at the windows of the shop, shuts her steady eyes and disappears with a crack. He wants her to come back and sit in silence with him.

He doesn't see Lily again for three weeks, and by that time Willow has decided that her new project involves wood-carving, which is both dangerous and fascinating, and Lysander is sitting on his front porch with her one evening, watching her while her parents are out on a date, and Lily appears in a flurry of autumn leaves in his side yard.

Willow glances up. "Lily!"

Lysander is busy trying not to slice his thumb off, but he glances up enough to see her jean-clad legs kneel on the porch beside Willow. "Hey, Willow. Hey, Lysander. What are you guys up to?"

"I am making a polar bear." Willow holds out the beginnings of the bear, a smoothed curve of wood which will probably turn into its perfect back. Willow is extraordinarily good at this.

"I'm making a...smooth stick." Lysander drops the sandpaper to the ground and looks up at Lily, finally. She grins.

"Both look good, although I think Willow's going to have you beat, Ly."

"Undoubtedly," Lysander agrees. "I was just about to put the kettle on. Would you like anything?"

"No, thanks." Lily picks up the sandpaper as he stands, and smoothes it against the wood he had been working on. He can hear her ask Willow a question, and by the time he comes out with three mugs of hot chocolate—because whatever, he'll drink Lily's if she really doesn't want it—both girls are laughing,

"I was just telling Willow about the time you and James and Albus put sand in my bed."

Lysander grins. "I'd forgotten about that. I'll have you know it was all your brothers' idea. I'd never have dared on my own."

Lily leans conspiratorially toward Willow. "He was always a little terrified of me."

Willow tilts her head, studies Lily. "You don't seem scary to me."

Lysander smiles, because Lily isn't scary anymore. She used to burn with fear turned inward, explode with emptiness, taste of tragedy. Now she just looks happy.

"I used to be." Lily is speaking to Willow, but she's looking at Lysander, and he's glad of it.

The third time Lily appears in town, he finds her on a bench outside the library. It's in the middle of the afternoon, and he's just on his way from meeting Lydia and her boyfriend for lunch. Lily looks like she belongs here, sitting with a book on her lap, gloved hands turning the pages, eyes scanning passersby every few seconds. He stands and watches her for a few minutes before crossing the street and sitting next to her.

"What're you reading?" he asks, reaching for the book. It's not the library's, it looks well-loved.

"_Grimm's Complete Fairytales_." He looks at her. "Whose is this?"

"It was Hugo's. Aunt Hermione gave him _Tales of Beedle the Bard _and _Grimm's_ for his fourth birthday. I was helping him clean out his room before he moved in with Ris and found this—he told me he didn't want it anymore. Said he knew them all by heart." Lily grins up at Lysander. "Muggles did a brilliant job at mixing the grotesque and beautiful, you know. Gave their fairytales a bit of reality that none of ours will ever come close to matching." She runs a finger down the worn leather spine. "I thought Willow might like them. She seems the sort who appreciates true stories."

"You want to come round mine for dinner? I'm watching Willow tonight, her parents are going out with a few of their friends."

"Do they ever spend time with her? I feel like she's with you every time I see you."

Lysander glances at her. "You've only seen me three times. That's not really a reasonable sample size."

"Touché." Lily smirks. "All right, I'll come home with you."

Willow loves the book, and she runs back to her house as soon as her parents' headlights light the street to show it to them, leaving Lily and Lysander with dishes and silence.

"You're amazing, you know that?" Lily says, waving her wand to send plates flying from the sink to the shelves.

Lysander thinks he can hear his heart beat. "How do you mean?"'

Lily stops moving and stares at him. "You come here because you've decided life sucks, and then you make one little girl's life immeasurably better, and you seem _happy_."

"That's not amazing," Lysander tells her. "It's all chance, you know."

"No, no, Lysander. It took a whole new career and some pretty shitty near-misses for me to get out of my head enough to be even near to happy. And here it just takes...well, I don't know. What did it take for you?"

Lysander grins at her. "Time." He glances at his watch. "Speaking of, you should probably get going, if you've got work in the morning."

Lily nods. "Yeah, you're right." She grins, says, "I'll see you," and disappears.

She sees him three days later, but only for five minutes. She walks into the coffee shop, orders a latte for takeaway, drops a few coins in the tip jar, and says, "Bye, Ly," before walking out onto the street, for all the world like she lives there.

He goes three weeks without seeing her, and the next time she appears in his living room.

"Lily?" He is in the kitchen when he hears the crack of her Apparation, and he comes into the room to find her swaying in exhaustion at the centre of the carpet. He catches her as she falls, and pulls her close to him, holding the weight of her body carefully in his arms and carrying her over to the sofa. He lays her down, smoothes her hair away from her cheeks, and kneels on the ground beside her.

Her eyes are shadowed and her skin is paler than it was three weeks before, her wrists skinnier and she felt feather-light when she fell against him. She is clearly exhausted. Lysander listens to her breathe for a few minutes before returning to the kitchen and getting her a glass of water. He then sits on the floor beside the sofa and leans his back against it, waiting for the rhythm of her breathing to change, so he can give her water and food and make sure that she can still think and speak.

He feels fingers in his hair a while later, and he jumps and turns to find Lily staring at him. "Here," he helps her sit up, hands her the glass. "Have some water."

She gulps it down and wipes her lips. "Sorry," she says, after breathing against his shoulder for a moment. "I usually go straight home and crash for days after cases but I guess home got mixed up in my head."

Lysander pushes to his feet, ready to ignore the suggestion in her words. But she latches onto his hand. "No, Ly, don't run away."

There are so many ways he could respond to that, and most of them are hurtful. But she's lying on his sofa looking tired, and it's been years. "I'm not running." It sounds like a promise. "I put some soup on the stove for you, I was just going to go get it."

"Oh." She falls back against the arm of the couch. "Okay, then."

He returns with a mug of soup and slips it into her hands, then sits at the end of the couch and she sticks her feet into his lap. He realises he didn't take off her shoes after she collapsed, and he does this now, tugging at the laces and dropping them to the floor in a mud-soaked pile.

"So was the case bad, then?"

Lily shrugs, sips from the mug and smiles. "It wasn't horrible. We were just searching for this bastard of a wizard who broke his girlfriend's arm using a really wretched curse. We found him, I arrested him; he's awaiting trial at the Ministry. It took a few days, though." She stretches, digs her feet into Lysander's thighs. "Sorry I came here and collapsed on you. I didn't mean to scare you."

"It's fine. I'm just glad I was home."

She smiles at him. "I am, too."

They sit in silence while Lily finishes her soup, and then she sets the empty mug on the floor and stretches her arms back over her head. "Do you want me to leave?"

Lysander shakes his head. "Not if you want to stay." 

"Good." She covers her face with her hands for the briefest moment, and then she lowers them and pins him with a stare. "You asked me what the point was."

"Oh, Merlin, Lil, it's been years."

"But it still bothers you, what I did to you seventh year, doesn't it?'

"Obviously." Lysander refrains from waving his hands at his cottage, refrains from placing the blame for his current existence on her. Because it had more to do with himself, and how he let himself fall, anyway.

"I was wrong," she says. "You probably know that I know that by now. I was very very wrong and I am horribly sorry for it. I should have spoken to you, or I should have ignored you entirely. That awful in-between thing that I did...I swear it was some sort of obsession. You brought me out of myself, and I thought I needed that. Maybe I did, but that was certainly not the healthiest way to go about it."

Lysander snorts. "It definitely wasn't."

She presses her feet in harder. "For me, you were some sort of healing process. A step I thought I needed to take. But for you, it was more complicated than that and I was too self-involved to see that." Lysander nods. "If I broke you, even if I only broke you a little bit, I am so sorry."

She's still staring at him. He can't look away. "Well, it's better now, right?" he asks. "We're both healthier now?"

"Yeah." She smiles. "If we slept together now, I wouldn't leave in the morning. And I'd never want you to stop talking to me."

He blinks. "Is sleeping together within the realm of possibility?"

"Merlin, Lysander. I've been spending these last few months falling back in love with you. You could literally do whatever you want to me at this moment and I'd be okay with it."

He moves so his head is near hers, pushes her up so she's stretched out on top of him. She leans her ear against his chest, listens to his heart. He plays with her hair—knotted from long days of chasing after that bastard wizard they caught. He presses a kiss to her forehead and says, "Right now I don't want to do much but keep you here for a while."

"Okay," she kisses his shirt over the thrum of his heart. "I'll stay as long as you want me."

"Lily, I'll never want you gone."

She links her fingers with his. "It's nice."

"What is?"

"Being happy, knowing that you're happy, too. Being here with you. Touching you. A lot of things." She smiles against his chest. "Most things."

Fin


End file.
